Film Breakdown: Jake Curhan, Stone Forsythe Thrown Into Fire During Win Over 49ers
Midway though the first quarter of last Sunday's contest with the 49ers, the Seahawks offensive line took another hit with third-string left guard Kyle Fuller exiting with a calf injury.
Already without starter Damien Lewis and backup Jamarco Jones, Seattle had limited options with Fuller sidelined. Third-year guard Phil Haynes was kept inactive as a healthy scratch, leaving only center Dakoda Shepley and a pair of rookie tackles in Jake Curhan and sixth-round pick Stone Forsythe available to replace him.
Throwing the undrafted rookie into the fire, the Seahawks decided to roll with Curhan, who had seen a handful of snaps at left guard during the team's offseason program but only played tackle at California. Facing a defensive front headlined by Arik Armstead and D.J. Jones in the interior, a stiff challenge awaited him.
While Curhan endured his rookie bumps allowing two sacks during the game, he survived the experience and improved as the game progressed. Meanwhile, Forsythe himself checked in for a banged up Brandon Shell in the fourth quarter and didn't back down when presented with a chance to square off with Pro Bowl defensive end Nick Bosa, leaving coach Pete Carroll highly impressed with how the youngsters handled a tough situation after the 30-23 victory.
"That was a really good showing by those guys. Can you imagine Stone [Forsythe] goes in there and there’s [Nick] Bosa on the other side for his couple of snaps? That’s a tough task, but they did do well," Carroll assessed. "We do need those guys to show up and come through, and they did exactly what we needed them to do the other day and survived. It’s harder for Jake [Curhan] to play guard, he’s a tackle. He had to go over to left guard and he made it through it. I know both of those guys learned a lot up front.”
How did Curhan and Forysthe hold up in their first extensive regular season action? With both players possibly set to see snaps against the Texans in Week 14, here's a quick film summary of how both players fared against the 49ers.
Jake Curhan
Pass Protection
A tackle by trade, Curhan dealt with his share of issues trying to block San Francisco's bevy of interior rushers on Sunday, including former Pro Bowler Arik Armstead. Specifically, in part due to lack of experience at the position and not being used to the confined blocking from a phone booth at guard, he got thoroughly whipped on multiple occasions off the snap by interior speed and quickness as well as counter moves. At times, he got caught flat-footed or with his feet seemingly anchored in quicksand. He wound up giving up a pair of sacks and three quarterback hits as a result.
When Curhan was able to get his hands into the opponent's frame and his footwork worked in unison with hands, however, he enjoyed a high success rate and didn't get overpowered by bull rushes. Using his size and strength to his advantage, once he locked on, defenders had a tough time shedding the block or driving him backward. Leaning on his tackle background, he also held up well against stunts keeping his head on a swivel passing and accepting rushers in such situations, displaying surprisingly nimble feet.
Run Blocking
As evidenced on his college tape, Curhan doesn't always exhibit the desired bend teams prefer and plays too upright. This makes it easy for opponents to get underneath his pads, particularly in the run game in short yardage situations. If he doesn't deliver a punishing, accurate strike off the snap to the defender's frame, he often gets stood up, preventing him from generating any push or movement at the line of scrimmage. Balance issues can also be a problem for him if he doesn't deliver an accurate strike with his hands off the snap.
As expected, Curhan worked well off of combo blocks in the run game, taking adequate angles to linebackers and safeties at the second level. Moving forward, he has to be more effective finishing blocks in such situations, however. He struggles with body control and balance as he climbs downfield and doesn't get his hands squared up on the target often enough, which leads to whiffs and falling off of blocks.
With skiing in his background, Curhan isn't the most mobile lineman out there, but he's more athletic than most would expect at his size. While he possesses average lateral quickness at best, he made several decent blocks on zone concepts against the 49ers. The Seahawks also used him several times as a pulling guard on traps and power and he moved well enough to get to his assigned defender the majority of the time.
Curhan's strength at the point of attack could be seen on display throughout the game redirecting and successfully hooking defenders on combo blocks. While Seattle's backs weren't always able to take advantage, he created creases for them to work with and even cooked up a pancake in the process.
Stone Forsythe
Pass Protection
In his first regular season action, Forsythe drew a not-so-ideal matchup with 49ers star defensive end Nick Bosa lined up across from him. But the sixth-round pick wasn't intimidated and held his own, winning all five one-on-one matchups against the 2019 Defensive Rookie of the Year. It's worth noting on a sixth rep running back Travis Homer came up and helped against Bosa.
With limited film to evaluate, Forsythe played light on his feet, confident with his hand placement and using his length to his advantage against speed rushes. He will need to improve his footwork at the top of pass sets to prevent rushers from bending around the corner, as he got caught lunging on one upfield rush from Bosa (video below).
Considering his somewhat lean build at 6-foot-8, 307 pounds, Forsythe's biggest issues in the past came against bull rushes where opponents were able to overpower him. But against Bosa, he set anchor better than expected. Even after initially being knocked backward a few times, he found ways to recover and halt the rush, keeping the pocket clean for Wilson in the process. From here on out, he'll need to work on maintaining active hands and not allowing defenders to knock them away.
Run Blocking
Coming into the 2021 NFL Draft, one of the biggest knocks on Forsythe was his natural leverage-related issues presented by his towering height. Towards the end of the game when Seattle advanced the football deep into San Francisco territory looking to throw a knockout punch, this problem came back to the forefront, as he wasn't able to get low enough not to be stood up or knocked back off the ball on a trio of goal line runs.
Prior to those plays, however, Forsythe's natural athletic ability could be seen in his footwork, particularly executing down blocks where he created movement off the ball. On a pair of runs, he was able to work his way down the line of scrimmage smoothly and get himself squared up on his defender. As was the case in pass protection, he used his length well too to help create separation blocking against defenders.
